This article is about Rhetoric and behavior of Hamas that may be considered genocidal. For Allegations of genocide in the October 7 attacks, see Allegations of genocide in the October 7 attacks.
Various legal experts and genocide studies scholars have opined that Hamas has a genocidal intent, or partially genocidal towards Israel, based on the group's charter, statements by its leaders, and its violent actions, including the October 7 attacks.[1][2] Following the October 7 attacks, a group of Israeli families brought forth a legal complaint alleging that Hamas had committed genocide to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2023.[3][4] Nonetheless, Hamas continued calls for the "annihilation" of Israel and vowed to repeat attacks on October 7 "again and again" until Israel's destruction.[5]
Hamas has repeatedly justified its violence by arguing "People under occupation have a right to resist that occupation".[6]
From 2000 to 2004, Hamas was responsible for killing nearly 400 Israelis and wounding more than 2,000 in 425 attacks, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2001 through May 2008, Hamas launched more than 3,000 Qassam rockets and 2,500 mortar attacks into Israel.[7][bettersourceneeded]
Hamas have committed massacres targeting Israeli civilians. Hamas's most deadly suicide bombing was an attack on a Netanya hotel on 27 March 2002, in which 30 people were killed and 140 were wounded. The attack has also been referred to as the Passover massacre since it took place on the first night of the Jewish festival of Passover at a Seder.
Hamas has defended suicide attacks as a legitimate aspect of its asymmetric warfare against Israel. In 2003, according to Stephen Atkins, Hamas resumed suicide bombings in Israel as a retaliatory measure after the failure of peace talks and an Israeli campaign targeting members of the upper echelon of the Hamas leadership.[a] but they are considered as crimes against humanity under international law.[9][10] In a 2002 report, Human Rights Watch stated that Hamas leaders "should be held accountable" for "war crimes and crimes against humanity" committed by the al-Qassam Brigades.[11][12][13]
During the October 7 attacks, Hamas infiltrated homes, shot civilians en masse, and took scores of Israeli civilians and soldiers as hostages into Gaza.[14][15] According to Human Rights Watch, the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate attacks, and taking of civilians as hostages amount to war crimes under international humanitarian law.[16] During its October 2023 offensive against Israel, Hamas massacred 364 people at the Re'im music festival, while abucting others.[17][18] During the same offensive, it also was reported that Hamas had massacred the population of the Kfar Aza kibbutz.[19] About 10 percent of the residents of the Be'eri kibbutz were killed.[20] Hamas militants attacked the Psyduck festival, that took place near kibutz Nir Oz, killing 17 Israeli partygoers.[21][bettersourceneeded] Video footage shows children being deliberately killed during the kibbutz attacks,[22] as well as what appears to be an attempt to decapitate a living person using a garden hoe.[23] Israeli forensic teams who examined bodies of victims said many bodies showed signs of torture as well as sexual and gender-based violence, and testimonies to this effect were also collected by Israeli police.[24][25][26][27] Haaretz later reported that forensic pathologists who examined bodies of the victims taken the Shura Base for identification found "no signs on any of those bodies attesting to sexual relations having taken place or of mutilation of genitalia." Not all bodies could be fully examined given the lack of forensic pathologists, and for some conclusions could not be drawn given their deteriorated state.[28] Israeli forensic pathologists in charge of the process clarified later that all bodies had been examined, and some were disfigured or burned.[29] Some of the testimonies were later proven to be false.[30][31][32] Detailed reports by the UN and The Times concluded that Israel's claims about the scale and formally sanctioned, systematic nature of sexual assaults did not stand up to scrutiny.[33][34][35]
According to one report, commenting on the 2014 conflict, "nearly all the 2,500–3,000 rockets and mortars Hamas has fired at Israel since the start of the war seem to have been aimed at towns", including an attack on "a kibbutz collective farm close to the Gaza border", in which an Israeli child was killed.[36] Former Israeli Lt. Col. Jonathan D. Halevi stated that "Hamas has expressed pride in aiming long-range rockets at strategic targets in Israel including the nuclear reactor in Dimona, the chemical plants in Haifa, and Ben-Gurion Airport", which "could have caused thousands" of Israeli casualties "if successful".[37][bettersourceneeded]
On 7 October 2023, Hamas claimed responsibility for a barrage of missile attacks originating from the Gaza Strip.[38]
Notes
↑ 'This ceasefire ended when Israel started targeting Hamas leaders for assassination in July 2003. Hamas retaliated with a suicide bombing in Israel on 19 August 2003, that killed 20 people, including 6 children. Since then Israelis have mounted an assassination campaign against the senior leadership of Hamas that has killed 13 Hamas members, including Ismail Abu Shanab, one of the most moderate leaders of Hamas. ... After each of these assassinations, Hamas has sent a suicide bomber into Israel in retaliation.'[8][full citation needed]
↑ Sen, Somdeep (2020). Decolonizing Palestine: Hamas between the anticolonial and the postcolonial. Ithaca [New York]: Cornell University Press. pp.60–62. ISBN9781501752735.
↑ Ntieb, Arnold (10 October 2023). לא רק ברעים: המסיבה הנוספת בדרום שמשתתפיה טרם שבו הביתה[Not only in Re'im: The participants of the other southern festival who did not come back]. maariv (in Hebrew). Retrieved 20 December 2023.
↑ Mor, Zohar; Kugel, Chen; Mizrahi, Hagar; Kaliner, Ehud (November 2024). "Mass killing during terror attack at the Israel-Gaza border and the role of the Ministry of Health in identification of human remains and their release". Forensic Science International. 363 112188: 1. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2024.112188. ISSN1872-6283. PMID39128201. Bodies were delivered to a central mortuary. Each body was coded and undressed for external inspection and documentation of physical elements... Whole-body CT was performed in cases the bodies were disfigured or burned from the second week
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